LONDON BLOG #2

      Sunday, we woke up from our house that we stayed in last night. The bed I slept in was a couch that got turned into a bed, and it was not that comfortable. We had our leftover Pizza for breakfast that we got from Bella Italia last night. We all brushed our teeth and then we called an Uber to take us to the place where we would board our next attraction.

     Our next adventure was a trip to the Warner Bros studios where they filmed the Harry Potter movies. We were going to take a certain bus there, and it left at 11:45 AM, and when we got there, it was 10:30 AM. We went to a nearby store, and we got some things like some muffins, some grapes, and smoothies since the bus ride to Warner Bros studios was 1 and a half hours long. My Mom got something at Pret a Manger, which has things like soup and sandwiches. I was able to split a footling from subway with my brother. We got on the bus at 11:45 AM, and we had an hour and a half trip ahead of us.


     Once we got to the Warner Bros studios, we got off of the bus, and we saw some of the real chess pieces from Harry Potter and the Scorers Stone. Me and Levi got pictures in front of them. They looked really real!

      We walked inside, and we had to wait in a long line, but in that line were some cool quotes from JK Rowling, and the cupboard under the stairs where Harry slept when he was at the Dursleys house in the summer. 

       We all went inside this room, and there were cool images showing of how Harry Potter got advertised all around the world. Here is one of them. It looks really cool!

     Once we walked through the doors, we all sat down in a theater and watched Harry, Hermione, and Ron introduce us to the Warner Bros studios. We got to enter the set of The Great Hall, and it was amazing!

     We got to see some of the clothes the characters wore in the movies. We went inside and we got to see a ton of things. I was very interested in how they made the Quidich scenes in the movies. They used green screens and had to find out how to move the camera so it looked like they were really playing. They also had animated players of each of the Quidich players, so they could do more intense things than just fly around. It was very interesting!

      We also got to see the Goblet of Fire Stand, Dumbledores office, the hidden starcase covered up by a winged beast. We also got to see the door they used to get into the scorers stone vault in movie one, and also the door to get into the Chamber of Secrets. I love the door with the 7 head snakes. I looked on the side, and they had a switch for each snake head, because in the movie, each head goes back a little, then the one long snake goes around the whole door then it opens, and they actually made the door do that. That is so cool!

      We also got to see a huge cauldron, the wall with all of the picture frames on it that Dolores Umbridge hung up and everybody had to follow. We also saw one of the moving star cases, the Gryffindor room where Ron and Harry slept at night. We also got to see Professor Snapes classroom when he was teaching potions.

        It was very awesome to go there, I loved the parts where they explained how they filmed a certain scene with green screen, because then you know how its made. Outside, we also got to see the Night Bus, and the shop that Fred and George Weasly opened up to sell magic candy and other things like love potions. 

      The last amazing thing that we saw, was the huge Hogwarts Castle sculpture that was made to get over the tower shots. They used this when they wanted to get like opening shots of the castle, they used this and put green screen behind it and thats how they made things like when Harry was running from the Dragon, and they fought on the roof of Hogwarts. 

      It looks exactly like the real castle, but they made it down-scaled. We also got to get a picture in front of the Hogwarts Express that they used in the movie, and a picture with tiny Harry Potter and tiny Ron Weasley.

 

       After our amazing adventure, we took an Uber to the Airport and flew home on RyanAir. I got home and went to school Monday, but today is Tuesday, and I did not go to school because I was really sick today. I woke up and felt horrible, hopefully I can go to school tomorrow, but it is a half day so its not really important. It was a good London trip, and I am currently working on a 'Career in Detail' project for my next Transition Year Project. I hope I can do this project as well as I did 'The Story of Me' I loved making that project. I will take pictures of my Project tomorrow. 

          -January 31, 2017 (Calebs Birthday) AND TUESDAY

LONDON BLOG #1

     This weekend, Me, Levi and my Mom are going to London. Friday we all packed our bags. We each packed a backpack, and that is all that we took. We did not take any roller bags because it would be to much to carry. All that we needed was 2 pairs of clothes, and a toothbrush, so we all carried everything in our backpacks. Friday, Oma made dinner at 5 PM, it was fish. It was pretty good, and we were all ready to go at 6 PM. We got a Taxi right after dinner and said goodbye to Oma. She was going to stay all by herself at home. It took about an hour to get to the airport. We were going to fly into the London Luton airport.

     We got to the airport after about an hour, and went to a waiting area, because we were 3 hours early. Our flight was at 9:50 PM and we were there at around 6:50 PM. The airport had free wifi so that was good. At about 8:30 PM, we walked to our gate, which was 105, and we waited to board. We boarded around 9:30 PM, and we took off. The flight was about 1 hour long, and I watched The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2. I had downloaded it on Netflix, and I could watch it without Wifi. We got into London Luton airport at about 11:20 PM, and we took a taxi to a nearby hotel called the Ibis. It was a nice hotel, and the room was nice. Here is what the Ibis hotel looked like.

        We all went to bed after brushing our teeth. In the morning, at about 8:30 AM, we woke up, and Me and Levi went downstairs to checkout what they had for breakfast, since it was not included. We decided to eat there, they had a pretty good verity of food, including sausage, bacon, hash browns, toast, cereal, croissants, and Nutella also. They also had these machines that would make you any type of coffee, or a hot chocolate drink. This is what my plate looked like.

         We had a ton of food, and grabbed some chips to take with us. We left the Ibis hotel and started to walk toward the nearest train station to take into London. We got to the train station and got our tickets. Then we boarded the train that would take us into London. We took the train until we got to St. Pancras, then took the tube to Piccadilly Circus, where we were going to see the Ripley's Believe it or Not attraction. Levi did not know where we were going so it was a surprise to him.

     
            We got to Piccadilly circus, and got off of the train and walked up the stairs until we were up on the streets. We looked around and it was right next to where we exited from the underground. We walked across the street and went inside. There was a big sign, and some statues. There was a huge gorilla made of metal shards, and there was a statue of the tallest man ever to live.

       We were instructed to go up to the 5th floor, and we would start on the 5th floor and then do each floor and go down from there. There was a lot of weird stuff. There were cool pictures made of things like candy, keys from a keyboard, broken CD,s and other stuff. There was a car that was made of 12 miles of yarn, and other weird stuff also.

This made me look like I had no legs

 

Abe Lincoln made all out of keys from a keyboard. 

        We went through, and there were these sculptures that were really small, so small that you had to look at them through a microscope. They were as thin as a human hair, and you could barely see them with your bare eye. There was also a mirror maze, and a black hole. We could not do the mirror maze the first few trys, but we got it eventually. The black hole was one of those things where you walk on a walkway and a huge cylinder spins around you so it feels like your turning. It looked like this.



      We walked through the hole attraction and saw all of the cool stuff. Then, we walked down to Waterloo bridge because my Mom was going to go see a play at the Aldwych Theatre called 'Beautiful' and Levi and I were going to see Rogue One again at BFI Imax which had the biggest movie screen in the UK. Once we got to Waterloo bridge, we all walked to the Movie Theater since my Moms play didn't start until 2:30 PM and it was 1:30 PM. We walked into this tunnel to get to the entrance of the movie theater.

         We walked inside and got the tickets for Levi and I. There was a nice waiting area that had couches. We sat at a couch and took a rest since we had walked a lot. My Mom left around 2 PM to go to her show, because it was back across Waterloo Bridge. We sat at the Couch and waited until about 2:30 PM to go up to the movie theater. The movie started at 2:45 PM. We walked in and the screen was huge. It covered the whole wall of the front of the theater. We walked back and grabbed our seats which were in the 5th row from the front.




      The screen was very big. It was also in 3D so it was awesome. Me and Levi watched our movie, and we got done at about 5:20 PM, and Mama was already at the Movie Theater waiting for us because her show ended about 30 minutes before we got done. We walked out of the Theater and I got a picture of Levi with a star-wars guy.

 After that, we walked out of the BFI Imax theater and walked to the tube. We took the tube to North Greenwich which is where the O2 theater is and where our house would be for the night. Once we got there, we dropped everything off, and then took an Uber back to The Ambassadors theatre, because my Mom had another surprise for Levi and I. We got to the Theatre and then we saw the sign for 'Stomp'. I did not really know what it was but my Mom has seen it twice before. This is what the stage looked like.


       There was a lot of pots and pans tied against the back wall. The show started and they came out with brooms, and they hit them against the ground and stuff, and it would make a cool rhythm. They used a ton of different things to make cool rhythms like garbage cans, kitchen sinks, and they used the pots and pans on the wall to use as drums. It was a really awesome show! After the show we got some pictures in front of the signs for 'Stomp'.

        After the show, we walked around and decided to go to a random restaurant called Bella Italia. It was an Italian Restaurant and it had a lot of really good food. I decided to get a Pizza that had different Italian meats, and salami on it. It was very good! I ate 6 pieces of my 8 piece Pizza. Levi also got a Pizza, and my Mom got a caprese salad.

        After we were all done eating, we all got some ice-cream. My Mom got 2 scoops, I got 3 scoops and Levi got 4.  Me and Levis icecream came in huge glass cups. They looked like this. 

       Me and Levi did not finish our ice-cream. We took our leftover Pizza to our house. We took an Uber back to our house and went to bed. 

(PART 1)    January 28, 2017 (SATURDAY)